In 1948, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance was signed between the Soviet Union and Finland, providing a key basis for relations between the two states that was to last throughout the cold war. With memories of the 1939 “winter war” between the two still acute, the agreement embodied the Paasikivi–Kekkonen doctrine, named for two of Finland’s post-war presidents who developed the idea between 1946 and 1982 of a neutral Finland close to the USSR.
It also set the context for the term “Finlandisation” used by international relations scholars to describe external interference by a powerful country in the foreign policy of a smaller neighbouring state. A year later, on April 4 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by the 12 founding members of Nato.
Throughout the cold war, Finland remained a neutral state – although more due to circumstance than by choice. And despite its 1,340km (832 mile) border with Russia, it chose not to join Nato in the late 1990s, even as many of its eastern European neighbours did. It officially abandon its policy of neutrality in 1994, joining Nato’s Partnership for Peace and then the European Union in 1995. But aspirations to become a full Nato member state had not quite matured. That all ended with Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
